This blog entry is a brief reflection and commentary on tribal values based on experiences growing up in the Midwest.

While eating lunch in the office break room I thumbed through The Wall Street Journal. Today was one of the rare exceptions that an article caught my interest. The Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians made the cover of the Money & Investing section. According to the article the tribe is refusing to pay a bond to a private investment company based on a technicality. The WSJ article seems to support the same stereotypes that accompanied my recollection of growing up in the Midwest.

With the experience of having spent almost my entire life near various tribal reservations, and only 2 hours from Lac du Flambeau, my perspective on the rights the tribes posses has always been accompanied with a lot of questions and misunderstandings. As an outsider looking in the apparent value placed on natural resources by the local tribes was often spoken of in less than stellar regards. Perhaps the local fisherman who I listened to had a biased opinion of tribal rights when fishing was bad because the tribal members had the right to commercially net fish in Lake Superior. A poor summer of fishing on Lake Superior was often blamed by aggressive netting earlier in the spring. Was it a legitimate argument? I don’t know, I’m not a biologist. It was just one of several common stereotypes that regional tribes were branded with.